The following are the outputs of the captioning taken during an IGF intervention. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> LITO IBARRA: Lito speaking. Hello, everyone. Can you hear me in the room? Thank you. Can you hear me in Zoom as well?
>> We can hear you as well.
>> LITO IBARRA: Thank you very much. So, let's begin with today's session, with the LAC Space. We have interpretation into English and into Spanish. If anyone needs interpretation into Spanish or into English, you can choose the language of your preference on Zoom. We had a technical issue. That's why we started a few minutes later, but now it's been solved, so you can choose, as I said, the language of your preference, either Spanish or English.
So, welcome to this space that traditionally takes place in international events where we try to catch up with everything that Latin American and Caribbean organizations do, these organizations that we operate in the region.
So, for today's programme, today's agenda, we have several issues. We have Federica Tortorella in Zoom. You can see her on the screen. And Rocio de la Fuente from LAC TLD will be co host online of this session. Without further ado, we will start.
We will have three main spaces: One for the report of the organizations of the region. Each organization has three minutes each for their presentation. We will try to stick to our schedule. Then, we will have a second round with some organizations of the region, who will answer to the reflections of the organizations regarding the main current processes the GLC, the WSIS+20, the IGF, and so on and so forth, and also, the report on recent research on Internet governance that are relevant for the region. Federico, would you like to say something?
>> FEDERICO TORTORELLA: Thank you, Lito, for the support. Greetings, everyone. Thank you for being here in this 8th edition of IGF LAC Space. I would like to remind of the didn't dynamics of the session. First of all, we will have a conversation and a round of questions of three minutes each. So, we ask you to please stick to the agenda so that we can deal with all the topics. And on the second part of the session, we will have our researchers, those who are part of the Leaders Programme, who will share with us their findings and their research on projects. Lito, would you like to take the floor once again or would you like me to continue?
>> LITO IBARRA: Unless you need to add something, I can call upon people to participate, following the agenda you provided. If you see that I'm missing something, please do not hesitate to interrupt me. So, we will call Lillian. Lillian, please, go ahead. Please turn on the mic.
>> Can you hear me? Thank you, everyone. It's a pleasure for me to be here in Riyadh, and those of you who are here online, I am Lillian Tomoro, part of a Colombian organization, and I also participate in the Secretariat of LACIGF. We accompany processes, such as the Colombian Table of Internet Governance that participated in 11 editions of the Forum, and who has the participation of different sectors of the organization of society and discuss to create or draft document and make recommendations to the government on everything regarding digital policies, and based on this experience in 2023, we applied to become the Secretariat of LACIGF. We were chosen by multistakeholders of IGF, and this is what I will share with you today.
This year, we organized the 17th edition of the Forum. This edition took place in Santiago, Chile. Last year, we had the 16th edition in Bogota, and it was like the reactivation after the pandemic of these in person events. We had organized this event in a virtual manner for three years, so it was a real challenge to foster once again the gathering and the people to participate in the multi sectoral cross section debate of LACIGF. We had several sessions in the room, where the Programme Committee proposed some panels that took place with the participation of different organizations. And the challenge for this year was to implement the new strategy of LACIGF. These were adopted in 2021. They were adopted after consultation process that was organized with the Latin American community. And the goal was to specify in a more clear manner the roles of the different bodies of LACIGF.
The bodies that were established started with the Committee of multistakeholders, that is to say the strategic committee, the committee for the selection of workshops. The Secretariat that until that time was organized by LACNIC, from the beginning of LACIGF, it was organized by LACNIC until 2023, where the application process was opened, where they were assigned as Secretariat.
With this new structure and with these roles more clearly defined in the structure, the idea was to strengthen the diverse of representation and participation of the different actors. And throughout this year, we have implemented these groups.
>> FEDERICO TORTORELLA: This is Federico
>> LILLIAN: Lillian speaking
>> FEDERICO TORTORELLA: I'm sorry, this is Federico speaking.
>> LILLIAN: I will try to discuss the workshops later on.
>> LITO IBARRA: We have just three minutes, okay? So, I will give the floor to Olga Cavalli.
>> OLGA CAVALLI: Can you hear me? Thank you for inviting us and thank you for being here. I will do my best for you to hear me properly. In our school, we are organizing the 17th edition in Mexico, in the 2nd of May, from 6th to 9th of May. The programme has evolved and grown throughout the years. It started with a week of training, and now it is a six month programme. It has a prior course of two months virtually, and then we have a course in a hybrid forum, and then we have signed an agreement with the University of Mendos, where I studied, and I got my diploma of engineer. With the first evaluation of two weeks, after this first evaluation, I was able to do a research, and then they can get a diploma of Internet governance. We have had already four cohorts of this course of study. We have trained 8,000 Fellows, and this training is for free, and they also can have a right to accommodation and food, the different meals. We received the WSIS prize and also the WSIS Champion for the impact on Internet training. We've had 50 scholars or Fellows that had accommodation and meals. We had more than 100 speakers from all over the world, and Fellows were from Latin America, in person and virtual Fellows participated from all over the world, from North America, Asia, Europe, among others. And we have also organized the 8th edition of Internet Governance. That is a three day training that is similar to the one organized in the hybrid manner, and it took place last month in November. And I think that my three minutes are up. Thank you, Lito.
>> LITO IBARRA: Thank you, Olga. Thank you for sticking to the three minutes. We will give the floor to ICANN, who is connected online.
>> RODRIGO DE LA PARRA: Thank you, Lito. Good afternoon, everyone. Greetings to those of you who are in person and to those of you who are connected online. Congratulations. Thank you for organizing this space. It's very important to keep updated regarding the work of the organizations and what we do regarding Internet governance and its importance all over the world and importance of the IGF.
As you know, this work is always carried out in a very coordinated manner with an amazing capability. At ICANN, the Latin American and Caribbean team continue to work in two main issues. The first one is to foster the greater participation of actors of the region of Latin America and the Caribbean in the processes in the development process of policies of ICANN. This work goes on, and many activities are organized in in person meetings that this year took place in three different places in the world, as you know, San Juan, Kigali and Istanbul, where we met with LAC Space. We had the participation of different of our colleagues that are working in ICANN. And something that is very important that I'd like to make focus on is that we centered many of our efforts in training at the technical level of those actors that are involved in the operation of DNS in the region.
We have to remember that part of the Internet Governance organization lies in the activities, and I think that we've had a very good result. These activities helped us understand from the operational point of view how the Internet can be interoperable and that can be safe. So, thank you for this opportunity. We will go on working in this line of thought next year, and I hope to meet you all real soon. Thank you very much.
>> LITO IBARRA: ISOC, Internet Society Latin America. Sebastian.
>> SEBASTIAN: Thank you, Lito. I am Sebastian Belagamba. Let me tell you that this is a very particular year for our organization because we have a five year strategic plan, and we are starting to implement our strategic plan next year. So, let me share with you some news on our strategic plan and the work we will do with the community.
Our strategy was defined in March this year. The Internet Society Board approved the strategy based on two main challenges that were identified at one point in time. One of them is global inequality. We understand there is an issue of global inequality we need to address. And the lack of trust on the Internet. People lack trust on the Internet.
These two challenges are big issues that we can address, I mean, global inequality. We can see how we can connect people those who are not connected to the Internet. We also need to see how we can improve connectivity to countries that are already connected. We need to make that connection more efficient.
These two global challenges are being translated into strategic goals that we have set for next year. One of them is that people all over the world may have access to a resilient and affordable Internet. And secondly, people need to have a safe and robust Internet experience. They need to feel protected on their daily life. These are the two main goals we have for this next five year plan.
And implementation will be related to some programmes. I am circulating a PowerPoint presentation where you'll see more details on these programmes, and I would like to invite you all to visit our website, where you'll see our strategic plan, our five year strategic plan, and the implementation of our strategic plan during 2026.
>> LITO IBARRA: Thank you so much, Sebastian, and thank you for sticking to the time. We are okay with the time on the agenda. Now we give the floor to esteban Lecano.
>> ESTEBAN LECANO: Hi, Bisilio will be speaking today.
>> LAC ISP is an ISP organization from Latin America. We are an association of Latin American and Caribbean ISPs. And we work on the development of the ISP market. We work on different regulatory asymmetries for ISPs to be able to provide their services, their network maintenance services, particularly to those regions that are underserved.
In Brazil, thanks to these regulatory asymmetries, we can say that ISPs cover 52% of the market in fixed and broadband in Brazil.
We have two main issues in Latin America that we need to advocate for. One of them is the frequency of 6 gigahertz for Wi Fi. This is really important for small ISPs to be able to deliver their services with quality. And this frequency needs to be used outdoor, in order to improve the service, in case areas may not be able to use a wireless service.
And there is another issue we're facing, and this is and this is the talks and the discussions we see from some regulators and the free share. We are against the idea of free share because fair share because this has nothing to do, this has nothing of fair, and this implies a huge risk for the whole Internet, impacting on the network neutrality, and this will lead to issues for small ISPs.
In South Korea, they started to charge for content, and this cannot be applied in Latin America in the thousands of thousands of ISPs we have in Latin America. And I am almost finishing my intervention.
So, this would be a task or something that will cause huge problems to ISPs and Latin America.
>> LITO IBARRA: Thank you, Basilio, and thanks LAC ISP. And now, Lito Ibarra this is me will speak about LAC IX. So, that is the Latin American and Caribbean organization for Internet exchange points. In case you don't know, an exchange point is where the local traffic of a country is being exchanged among providers, in order to minimize the time and the cost and the delay in communications. The IX, or exchange points, are growing with the passing of time. They are part of the Internet critical infrastructure with the DNS. This is part of the Internet critical infrastructure.
In the case of LAC IX, we are deploying new infrastructures, LAC IX wants at the end of the year to update its database. And this year, we had four new exchange points, and we are now 34 traffic exchange points in the regions that are part of LAC IX. These are members of our organization. They are not the total amount, but they are part of the organization. We are still working with other organizations, particularly with the Internet Society, LACNIC, and other technical organizations in the region, and we're also articulating and working together with the technical community.
We have a General Assembly in the LACNIC event at the beginning of the year in May, and we hold a virtual meeting throughout the year. This is really relevant for participants. We held four training sessions for technicians. And let's bear in mind that these exchange points are looking for CDNs. These are copies of contents from large Internet content providers, in order to provide a more efficient access to users.
They also work with technicians; that is, there are some working groups. One of them is a public policy working group, and there is another working group that follows up the LACNIC policy development process, which, as you know, is open and public, and they report on any policy proposal on the critical infrastructure of the Internet, particularly affecting IXPs.
And we think communications on LinkedIn and on our website for our members and those of you who are interested. And this is the end of my intervention.
Now, I would like to give the floor to ALAI, Raul. Are you connected?
>> ROCIO DE LA FUENTE: We don't see Raul online, but he can take the floor at the end of the session.
>> LITO IBARRA: Okay. Now we are going to give the floor to LACNOG. Leah, please go ahead.
>> Can you hear me? Good morning, everyone. Let me begin with my intervention. LACNOG is the Caribbean and Latin American Network of Operators. This is a non for profit organization, and it is based in Montevideo, Uruguay for 14 years now. Our mission is to gather operators together, I mean, technical people operating the networks helping us to communicate. And we are aiming at being a reference association. Our mission is to strengthen the among operators all around the region by fostering knowledge and by promoting the work of our working groups. We want to foster discussions, exchange information, collaborate with our community.
Our organizational culture is based on volunteers. We have more than 50 people working with volunteers, and in an inclusive manner.
As for our structure, we have a committee, a programme committee, asking for technical proposals that are related to the Internet operations, and we have a board, working groups, and the community.
For the next year, we are working on different programmes. We held webinars and interviews to our members of the community. We have podcasts recorded. These are sort of talks/discussions for technicians to be able to get information. And we also published relevant content and we spread that content through our discussion list.
We also have alliances with the different organizations, such as the Internet Society, LACNIC, ICANN, among others. And we also try to strengthen our institutional image. And we would like to position our organization as a technical organization.
We have an annual event in the LACNIC meeting and we hold an event in each of the countries. This year, we're working within the framework of strengthening the technical community, on creating a training, or a working group. And we deliver trainings on IPv6 security, peering, among other topics.
And in our working groups, we have the participation of the Latin American and the Caribbean region in the IGF. And I think this is the end of my intervention. Thank you.
>> LITO IBARRA: Thank you, Leah, for this LACNOG report. Now I would like to give the floor to CETyS. Fernanda Martinez is here.
>> FERNANDA MARTINEZ: Thank you, Lito. This is the study of society at the University of Andreas, a city and academic centre. The goal of our centre is to promote and train people on different topics related to Internet policies. We were able to cover our goals this year. We have three programmes, and we hold two events throughout the years. We participated in events where we had over 450 people participating in different events.
And I will share with you the annual report of our activities, but I will give you a very brief summary in the link that I will be posting in the chat. This year, we are happy because one of our most important reports has been published. We have been working on this report throughout 2020 and 2021. This is the Universality Indicator Report. This is a project that is led by UNESCO. And the goal of this project is to do a mapping of each of the countries, based on five Internet related access: Rights, openness, multistakeholderism, genre, access. It is a very relevant report.
And even though some elements may have changed, the methodology being used is really useful because we can map the situation in each of the countries. And this is also very relevant because we believe that, in order to create public policies, we need to base ourselves on evidence. So, this report covers one of the aspects that is very relevant for us, and this is the creation of evidence, in order to translate that evidence, or to provide the evidence to the decision makers, in order for them to be able to craft policies that are robust.
The approach is really enlightening, because it is based on the recommendations that were required. And the report includes an Advisory Board. It is a multistakeholder body. And this gave us the opportunity to have a very relevant dialogue with the stakeholders in the ecosystem, particularly in Argentina, meaning the private sector, public sector, civil society. And we're able to draft some recommendations based on each of these areas, and we highly recommend reading this report.
And I will end my intervention now, and there is another very interesting project, and I will talk about it on the second in my second intervention. It's a pleasure for me to be able to participate here, and thanks again, Lito.
>> LITO IBARRA: Thank you, Fernanda. Let's move to LACNIC. We will give the floor to Paula Oteguy. Thank you, Paula.
>> PAULA OTEGUY: Thank you, Lito. Greetings, everyone. Good morning, good afternoon, for those of you who are in Riyadh. It's a pleasure to present on behalf of LACNIC the work that we've been doing in this space, in the IGF LAC Space.
So, I would like to comment on the support programme to analyse these local programmes, local support, to tell you a little bit what it's about, and also, to seize this opportunity to emphasize the importance and the relevance of these initiatives in the stakeholder model.
This programme provides support to the Internet Governance initiatives in our region, for them to organize their events, and it addressed to regional, national initiatives, and also young peoples' initiatives at the local level, and also Internet governance schools.
For you to get to know a little bit what it's about, this support is translated mainly in front for the organization and for the implementation and execution of these spaces, and also, as long as the initiative requires it, a webinar with up to 500 participants, and also the possibility for LACNIC experts to contribute and to cooperate with the topics of the agenda of those initiatives, participating actively in panels and discussions with experts, technical experts, dealing with cybersecurity, DNS security, among other topics.
And some numbers for you to get to know our 2024. We supported ten local initiatives in the region, two youth initiatives at the local level. Here I'd like to mention that they are emerging in the region, these youth initiatives, at the country level. And also, we supported LACIGF in its 17th edition and Youth IGF, and Internet Governance schools, highly recognised, and also the virtual schools by Internet Governance, and a recent initiative of the Chilean University for Internet Governance and International Relationships.
In order to apply for this support, you need to visit our website in the Opportunities section. Therein, you will find Internet Governance, and there is a form that you need to complete. And we will contact you, in order to make this support possible.
Yes, I'm nearly finished. I would just like to highlight the role of IRs and its very importance in the multistakeholder model.
>> LITO IBARRA: Thank you, Paula. We will close this section with the LACTLD presentation with Rocio de la Fuente.
>> ROCIO DE LA FUENTE: Thank you, Lito. Thank you for your support in the in person event, and also everyone for participating in another edition of the IGF LAC Space.
I'd like to tell you the progress we've made in the single server user that enables us to make a unique consultation of a domain name and the multiplicity of these countries and territories in the region. In this manner, we provide an additional channel to make consultations for the region that are available for registration and those already registered. For those already registered, it enables to add direct users to the websites of CCLTs to make available information. This year, that is operating in a beta model with a lot of effort of CCTLDs, so we invite you all to use it and to diffuse its use because it's a way to promote the domain names in the region.
I would like to take this opportunity as well to tell you about the efforts, or rather, the activities and the events we've been developing with other organizations, with the technical community in the last two years, and mainly in the last year. Our goal was to strengthen the relationship with other actors of the ecosystem, and also with governmental bodies. I think that these efforts are very effective because it enabled to gather different organizations LACNIC, LACNOG, among others, and other ICANN organizations. We are very happy with its work, and our will is to go on consolidating this technical community as a sector.
I would like to give Federica the floor for this last minute I have left. Federica, you have the floor.
>> FEDERICO TORTORELLA: Greetings, everyone. I would like to tell you some information, as Rocio said. Thanks to this session, we have built a repository at the regional level, and the idea is to consolidate in a single document the information, many information regarding the organizations in the region that deal with Internet governance issues. So, we invite you to look at this repository, and for those of you who would like to contribute, you are most welcome to do so. We will share the link in the chat. You can write to me or to Rocio, and we will tell you how you can cooperate.
The main idea is to consolidate information so that it is easy and accessible to know which are the organizations that are there and what are they doing. That is it on my side. Lito, you have the floor. Thank you very much.
>> LITO IBARRA: Thank you for sticking to your three minutes. Yes, we will be waiting for that link. I think that it's very, very useful for many of us, because we have heard a lot of information, and we've made notes, but I think that it's a great initiative to have this information online. Thank you very much.
Let's move to the next round of LAC Space. The question was to share the reflections on the organization you belong to, relating to the processes that are taking place. And we have five organizations rather, six organizations, sorry, that are registered, and you have three minutes each. We will start with Internet Society, please.
>> SEBASTIAN BELLAGAMBA: I know three minutes is not a long time, but just to give you an idea, I think we're going through a very important year for Internet governance. Next year, the mandate for IGF will be ended, and WSIS mandate, not only IGF, which is the mechanism that we have to gather all this information, but also the elements regarding WSIS Lines of Action, so on and so forth, that emerge in 2025. We had a mandate for ten years that was renewed in 2015, and now in 2025, we will reach the end of the mandate.
This is imperative to other events. The Global Digital Compact was approved this year. That has some contact points with the Lines of Action of WSIS, and we need to understand at the intergovernmental process how they interact. It's not very clear how the implementation of GDC will be, and which will be the review of WSIS+20 and how the actions of both the WSIS and these lines of action will interact, if this is the case. So, what is important is to bear this in mind, and all of this is included in the agenda to be discussed in the next 12 months.
We, as a community devoted to Internet governance, either directly or indirectly, we have to have a position and a line of action. So, in the next few months and the next few weeks, we have to define this coordinated action. I think that the most important thing to highlight is that for those of us who are part of the technical community of the Internet, we are trying to have a coordination, a collaboration, a position that is maybe not a single position but a consolidated one, at least, in order to submit a productive proposal. To have an efficient project emerging out of this process. So, it's a year full of challenges. Thank you very much.
>> LITO IBARRA: We will give the floor to Rodrigo de la Parra with Latin America.
>> RODRIGO DE LA PARRA: Thank you. Yes, the challenge to share in these three minutes so many thoughts about these processes that are so different, but these three processes show us this opportunity to reaffirm the principles that we agreed upon throughout the WSIS process. When discussing in the Internet governance and everything that's been going on, and in this process that has the participation and the consensus of the multistakeholder model.
In order to reframe these principles and the bodies that have been created around this consensus, world net has been a process that reminded us of these processes, and the Global Digital Compact has many reformation principles of these main principles regarding Internet governance. So, I think there are some implementation challenges, and it's very important, as Sebastian said, we need to be coordinated, in order to verify that any implementation made around these topics is based on these principles. So, we have WSIS+20 next year. I think that in our region, we can prove that the examples of collaboration that we have, that some important cases of how we've been working in the last few years, not only in the technical community, but how we have integrated ourselves in a very practical, a very effective manner, with other sectors, such as the governmental sector and different organizations, intergovernmental organizations at the regional level. So, it's a huge task.
As a region, I believe we need to foster this collaborative mindset in the region. So, once again, thank you for this opportunity.
>> LITO IBARRA: Thank you, Rodrigo. So, Sebastian and Rodrigo have defined a context, the context wherein, and also the one we will have next year. It's been a very critical year with big changes. And I think that many of us would like that in that meeting, WSIS+20, the decision of going on with IGF was undertaken, and to have a greater budget to go with these debates that take place at the global level.
We need to think about something in the Latin American region. As the Secretariat, we will discuss this. We have some examples at the regional level. And we also have to see which are the national examples of the IGF.
If in a very pessimistic scenario, the IGF would change or would be suspended by the decision of the States, the countries, and the regional events wouldn't have to be suspended as well. We have developed a culture and an environment in which we can go on discussing these topics at the national and the regional level. Of course, we will have to have more financing. This is always a challenge. But the machine is running.
So, I think that this is a process that we have copied, so to speak, from the Summit of WSIS of 2023 and 2005, but we can contribute with a Latin America and Caribbean flavor, and we have to go on with these efforts.
We have a very important community of events, of people in the region, in our countries, some stronger or with more capabilities than others, but we can go on supporting ourselves.
I will be doing a retweet to Sebastian, Rodrigo, and other colleagues. What can I tell you about the School of Internet Governance and the IGF? Well, this was our place. This is where we were born. So, what we should do as parts of different processes to strengthen ourselves? We need to be very engaging. We need to be diverse. And this takes time and resources, but we also need to be inclusive.
The most important example was the LACIGF this year, and I would like to highlight Lilian's role. She has been key. Because we were able to reinvigorate the space based on a very intense work of coordination. This is an example to replicate.
And something that I said at the ICANN meeting, because I had a similar question, and this is that we need to understand that stakeholders are different. And being on an equal footing doesn't mean that we are the same. Governments have their own processes, if they need to take their own decisions, they have their own responsibilities, but we need to work together anyway, and that is our responsibility. Reinforcing the space has to deal with this.
Since the mandate of the IGF was renewed, we, in the school, we expect to have an IGF, and we are a very collaborative community, and we know that we can work together, but the school is always open to offer the space.
>> LITO IBARRA: Thank you, Olga. You have one minute left, but now we will give the floor to Lilian Chamorro from LACIGF. I think there is an open mic.
>> LILIAN CHAMORRO: To close this idea and to open the next idea, let me add the following. In this LACIGF edition, we have 99 proposals from different Latin American countries, from different organizations to, you know, be heard. We selected 15 sessions were really high quality. This was a very complex process. Recommendations were being made. And defining the sessions was a very dynamic process as well. We have over 120 panelists from different countries, over 300 face to face participants. All sessions were streamlined.
And when it comes to the second question, we need to make the most of these platforms and we need to make the most of all we have done in Latin America and at the Caribbean region. We need to add our own flavor, as Lito said, and this is what we do at the LACIGF, we give our own flavor to Internet governance. Internet governance is not only crafted in these spaces, because we meet everyone from all over the world, but governance is also crafted in our local spaces. And these regional governance spaces are being, you know, this is cast on a national and regional space. This is where realities, problems, and even good aspects are being reflected.
I loved seeing the IGF in El Salvador, because they had a rock session, a heavy metal music session, and this is what we have in Latin America, you know. We need to show ourselves as we are you know, we need to participate in the WSIS, in the GDC. We need to show what we do, the power we have, and how we can help to, you know, relate those spaces.
We are addressing topics that are important for the GDC, and these topics are being discussed in our communities. They are part of our regional processes. We also need to understand that the discussion doesn't need to be technology centered. We need to centre ourselves on technology, but on human aspects and environmental aspects, because this is something that we need to take into account in our region. We have other regions and things to take care of. This needs to take place in our discussions. IGF has been a great platform for working with different ecosystems and stakeholders, but it is also an opportunity to create synergies to show what we are doing. And you know, I think that we have been appropriating with ecosystem and we have new opportunities to strengthen our spaces and to give our flavor to these spaces, in order to work together.
We are learning really a lot. I am always learning from the communities we work with and I think we can replicate this in other discussion spaces.
>> LITO IBARRA: Thank you, Lilian. And to close this second bloc of LAC ISPs, I would like to give the floor to the LAC ISP representative. Basilio, please go ahead.
>> BACILIO PEREZ: Thank you so much. At LAC ISP, we are always aware and participating in different discussions, such as the IGF, (?) and WSIS discussions, and this is thanks to the support we receive, in order to participate in those spaces.
The multistakeholder mechanism of Internet is really important for us. Internet itself will not make sense without the whole mechanism that was created throughout time.
And I like what Lito said, of the possibility of not continuing with the IGF or with having a local IGF, and this is what we have to do. We need to focus and work to keep this multistakeholder model and the multistakeholder mechanism, but we also need to work as required. Thank you.
>> LITO IBARRA: Thank you, Basilio. So, we will now close this second block of the LAC space and we have a third block or a third session. And we will now hear from researchers from CETyS and I will give the floor to Paula Oteguy, who is online and will be the moderator of this session. Paula, please go ahead.
>> PAULA OTEGUY: Thank you very much, Lito. We will now begin with the second part of the session. This is a space we started three years ago, and we would like to keep on promoting the space. The idea is to share research projects that are relevant to our region on the Internet development.
So, this space will be devoted to researchers from the (?) project in LACNIC and the research is supported by CETyS, will now be presenting an overview of all the work they have been doing so far.
Having said this, we will start with LACNIC on the Lideres Programme and then give the floor to the CETyS representative. The Lideres Programme in LACNIC supports researchers and with a particular overview on this is on local projects. There is a period of time of three months. They have the support of well known mentors in our regions, and the results of the researchers. And from LACNIC, we support researchers. Lito, sorry, but we are hearing you. Can you hear me okay?
>> Yes, Paula. We are hearing you. Please go ahead.
>> PAULA OTEGUY: So, as I said, the results of the research, of the ownership of the authors, but we help with the promotion of these results. There will be three presenters today from last year, from the research being carried out last year. They will have eight minutes each, so please stick to the time.
I will introduce Jose Alberto Rojas. He is a lawyer on civil crime, and he will be introducing research on child grooming on online gaming and protection of children in Latin America. Jose, if you're there, you have the floor.
>> JOSE ROJAS: Thank you, everyone. Today, I have the honour of introducing an investigation on child grooming and online gaming.
One of the the most concerning aspects of cybercrime is this. This research aims at describing this phenomenon and offering recommendations that could be useful for educators, parents, legislators, and for the industry itself.
Grooming is known as sexual related proposals to children or adolescents, either face to face or by using technology, communication technologies. This is a problem that is well known, but it has new dimensions when we speak about gaming.
To give you a different overview, think about this paradox. We teach children not to talk to strangers outside, but in the digital world, they talk to strangers without knowing who is the person behind avatars or usernames. So, online gaming are essential spaces for socializing, but they also represent a very risky environment. Platforms such as Minecraft, Roblox or Fortnight gather young people together, and they're always interacting. So, part of the research carried out in Chile reveals that 82% of children recognise the risk of sexual harassment online, but 40% of these children do have permission from their parents to play on virtual spaces with strangers, so they do not have supervision, and they have the consent of their parents to be able to interact in these video games with people they don't really know. So, this gives us an idea of the risk and the supervision techniques.
When it comes to grooming and video games, well, this is facilitated due to, you know, the fact that groomers may adopt false identities. They interact in chats using realtime communications or tools by groomers to establish trust relationships very quickly.
One of the main issues and something we saw in each of the researches is the, you know, the sending of gifts or virtual coins. These are being used as manipulation tools. The main goal of this research is to see how grooming operates in online gaming and the implications they have in Latin America.
So, after this research, I set up the specific goals for this research, and this is to identify the most vulnerable platforms and video games to analyse the behavior patterns of groomers in this environment to assess the level of risk and the knowledge about this risk among parents and educators and to provide measures to mitigate the issue. So, this research provides a qualitative and quantitative analysis.
We gather different cases, based on different interviews, and we also interviewed the digital experts. We analysed the legislation in Latin America to see the effectiveness to fight against grooming in online gaming.
One of the main findings of this research is that 180 cases were reported in Roblox and other platforms, and this report was done before law enforcement agencies. I consulted with law enforcement agencies in different Latin American countries, and this is being detailed in the research.
The platforms that are most vulnerable are those platforms that have the option of online and realtime chat. I mean, the use of avatars are widely used among groomers, and you know, the lack of knowledge among parents is also important to take into account.
During the COVID pandemic, there was an increase of this risk, and the cultural acceptance of these video games is something that we saw in our research in Chile.
When it comes to victims, minors said that they experienced anxiety, fear, social isolation, among other situations. Sometimes, these experiences create problems in the long term. And some of the examples that we gathered, and in particular, we had one example in Peru that gave rise to the investigation, is something that happened in 2023.
There was first an attachment. There was a man contacting children through a platform, and they asked them for pictures. In Argentina, there was one adolescent that was manipulated by a video game platform. Then he was contacted via WhatsApp, and he was requested to provide sexual related content.
During the pandemic, grooming reports increased 81%, and this has to do with the time that minors spend online.
Among the proposals that are being delivered in the research, we have, you know, strengthening digital education, creating campaigns for parents and educators, in order to prevent grooming, teaching minors to recognise risky or suspicious behaviors online. And it is important to foster the multistakeholder participation and to engage governments and child protection organizations to design their protection measures and create agreements among countries to prosecute cases, also to promote innovation, such as the use of artificial intelligence to moderate content and to identify behavior patterns, to improve verification and parental control features on platforms.
It is also important to promote laws in Latin America allowing the real prosecution of grooming in all its shapes. One of the biggest issues that we realized in our research is that there are no concrete or proper protocols for grooming online.
The video gaming support areas were the ones addressing these issues, but they were not able to share information when the criminal investigation started.
So, in order to finish my intervention, let me add the following. Grooming in online gaming is a growing threat, and it requires a coordinated answer. My research aims at providing shed light on, you know, this aspect, but to promote protection. The protection of children in online environments is a collective action involving families, governments, companies, and the society as a whole. Thank you so much for your attention.
>> PAULA OTEGUY: Thank you, Jose. Thank you for sticking to the time. Congratulations for that and for sharing the main findings of your investigation. It's very important to know the vulnerabilities regarding this topic and the recommendations of your research are of high value to all of us, so thank you very much.
We will go on with our next researcher, Camilo Arratia, a sociologist from Rio who is online with us. His research is called "Young Indigenous People and Technological Appropriation." Camilo, welcome.
>> CAMILO ARRATIA: Good morning, good afternoon, depending on where you're connecting yourself from. I would like to start by introducing this topic and let me tell you what this investigation is about.
My research is related to the appropriation of technology in young population that identifies itself as Indigenous. I tried to understand the framework of what we understand by technological appropriation and the motive that involves four aspects access, accessibility, learning, transformation, and my understanding, this technological appropriation should move forward these stages so that we can say, okay, we have technological appropriation regarding these young people. We will have to analyse first which is the access to technology. However, learning, once they have access, how they have integrated this, because we cannot forget that mostly regarding self identified Indigenous populations, we have to understand how this is integrated in their culture, and also, transformation. How much has technology transformed their perception as Indigenous People, their communities, but also in a more broader sense. That is why what we are talking about when we talk about technological appropriation.
Based on this, I interviewed a lot of young Indigenous Peoples; I participated in focus groups, noting all not in all the territory of Bolivia, but in some specific region. I worked with young people, with young people from African communities, and from (?) communities and also with young people. (?) is not one of the Indigenous Peoples from Bolivia, but in the Bolivian Charko, which is in the border with Argentina, there are 20 Indigenous Peoples that live there. So, they identify themselves as Takanas. They have roots in these Indigenous Peoples. And when we did the focus group, we included them there because they identify themselves as Indigenous Peoples. So, the first point was to understand that young Indigenous Peoples, at least in Bolivia, many of them inhabit most urban spaces. There are not isolated spaces regarding technology. So, in this sense, we asked them about accessibility, taking this into account.
There are many interesting answers, depending on the population and the geographical location where the research was carried out, we had very different realities. For instance, regarding Internet access, by meaning not only that the cables exist but that we have devices to connect to the Internet or that in schools or local, regional government, in the communities, they do have access to the Internet. So, in those spaces which are more urban spaces with a larger population, such as (?) they have a good connection, a good access to the internet, but the connection was not broadband, but rather, a mobile connection. That is to say that they were connected to the Internet, but most of its use was with mobile devices or mobile data, so they depended on the three companies that we have in Bolivia to connect themselves to the Internet.
There was a huge contrast with the lowlands, with the chicanos young people who lived in a community with Concepcion, on the border with Brazil, which is in the (?) territory. Internet access was scarce. There we have the first contrast. There is just until one of the telecommunication companies, they could not choose because if they had another company as a server, they wouldn't have access to the Internet. And Internet was invoiced by the hour. And what they told me is that they didn't have Internet in their houses or in their homes. They had to go to in their town, in their village, and they needed to go to a more urban region, in order to connect to Internet. That is the first impression that we have.
These young people that identify themselves as Indigenous People, they have different possibilities of accessing Internet. So, when we started asking about the learning, such as more focused on a digital areas such as ChatGPT, for instance, they didn't have this in mind. They couldn't have access to this because they had more basic problems for accessing Internet. And there we could see the difference between those who lived in the capital city and those who lived in more isolated or rural areas. This is one of the first differences that was very interesting to study. We could discuss about ChatGPT and the Internet, but their access was more limited to it.
Regarding the transformation, this community and in the integration, there were many answers that they tried to integrate that many of the people that are connected are trying to understand that it is a reality that it is here to stay. There was a collective of Imarras and (?) people in LeCroy. In the past, they were devoted to artistic activities, and they have a new technology law in their community. And they discussed problems such as digital violence and grooming, and there was a notion, a broader notion of all these matters.
In those spaces that were more isolated, the reality was different, but there is an effort to integrate technology in all these processes. They saw technology as a bridge. That is what they told us.
Something that is interesting as well is that in the community, technology was a boom throughout the pandemic because it was their connection to civilization and that created an interest in migrating to urban areas, in order for them to study. Because many of these young people, they cannot study these technological courses of study in their community. That is why they want to move to the city, in order to do this.
And regarding transformation, it was very complicated because to see that technology as a transformation element in these communities, this is not yet very visible in their cases. I think that this is the most difficult aspect to understand when we discussed about artificial technology and all of this.
>> PAULA OTEGUY: Sorry to interrupt you. You need to wrap up.
>> CAMILO ARRATIA: Okay. The conclusion would be that Indigenous Peoples that live in rural areas, or small, urban areas, they still have problems accessing technology, because in many cases, there is no network, but rather, data, mobile data. So, we are still in these preliminary stages. Thank you very much.
>> PAULA OTEGUY: Thank you, Camilo, for sharing your research and your conclusions. This enables us to know the specific perspectives and point of view. Thank you very much.
In order to close our research from the leaders programme, I will give the floor to Thais Aguiar, who is a lawyer and researcher in digital topics, and recent it is called cinematic policies in Brazil, where we come from and where are we going.
>> THAIS AGUIAR: Greetings, everyone. Thank you very much for this opportunity to present my research next to these very interesting researchers. And I am very happy to participate in this forum. I would like to thank Paula and my tutor, and also those of you who participate in the Leaders Programme. It is an honour to present my research that wants to analyse the regulatory framework of cybersecurity in the country. The goal was to research on the properties in Brazil for the implementation of these policies.
Regarding methodology, it is a qualitative study, exploratory and documentary, one that analyses public policies and case studies throughout COVID. And they tried to see which is the history of cybersecurity policies in Brazil and the future thereof. So, this is a very brief resume, and I invite you to a brief review, and I invite you to view the whole work on the Internet.
Where do we come from? In the last few decades, the appearance of Internet Society has been a great change for and in Brazil, there is a challenge of the promotion in a way that promotes the use of technology in a secure manner, in a safe manner, in order to preserve the Internet in an open manner and in a safe manner, to promote human rights.
And the path of Brazilian cybersecurity is marked by a convex evolution of bodies and with a need to balance individual rights and cybersecurity. This is a very complex study that involves a lot of bodies and actors, and the structure of cybersecurity and Internet governance has many challenges, such as the need of greater clarity of notions and cooperation of the different bodies.
In 1995, we had the Committee of Internet Management that promoted the multistakeholder model and served as a model to different bodies, not only in the country but also at the worldwide level. In 2015, there were several bodies, LACNIC, among others, and there are many findings around the states and we have the Committee of Cybersecurity, and also, as I said before, we need more clarity and cooperation among the stakeholders.
And there are several events that gave shape to cybersecurity in the country, such as the World Cup of FIFA 2014 and the Olympic Games in 2016 in Rio and the increase in cyber threats. And these are events that needed more participation from the bodies that needed to guarantee cybersecurity and also to include cybersecurity in fundamental rights.
Brazil has a history of multistakeholder governance. In spite of the challenges, and in my research, there is the approval of the National Strategy of Cybersecurity in 2020, and this strategy has as its main goal to strengthen cybersecurity in the country with a multi sector approach that involves the civil society and the public private sector. And this reaches a mature model of cybersecurity with different perspectives, such as political one.
There are also some limitations and transparency problems and secure tiesation of the cyberspace. So, we reach to the conclusion of where do we come from and where are we heading? Brazil faces the need to have a more solid cybersecurity framework, more effective one, by promoting the cooperation among the stakeholders. That is to say that we need to have a unified and effective strategy to protect infrastructure, services, and individuals in the digital space.
Policies need to have evidence based approaches and to involve technical aspects of the public and private sectors, and the civil society wants to be so they are in line with democratic values and to respect fundamental rights. Brazil has to seize in its experience in the multistakeholder model, in order to have a sovereign nation, digitally speaking, and to protect at the same time individual rights and to promote an inclusive and safe environment, digital environment.
Brazil has the possibility to become a leader in this sense and also to guarantee cybersecurity or to become an example in the region by improving public policies and having a more solid multistakeholder model to have a sovereign digital nation. Thank you for your time.
>> PAULA OTEGUY: Thank you, Thais. Cybersecurity faces complex challenges. You mentioned some of them, namely, cooperation among different institutions and organizations. So, I invite you all to have a look at all this research that we are sharing today. I will be posting the link in the chat for you to be able to access this research.
I would like to thank especially the presenters and for representing a group of 16 great researchers that we had in our 2023 edition.
And now, I would like to give the floor to Fernanda.
>> FERNANDA: Thank you, Paula. Let me echo the echo your comments and congratulating the presenters for their research. I will read the research later on, and congratulations on these leaders, or Leaders Programme for incentivizing research in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Now, I will introduce the next two researchers. They are going to share with us their findings. On the one hand, we have Soledad and Pilar Llorens. And let me say that the idea of this space is to introduce some of the investigations or researches, but also to, you know,
New and we have different researchers ongoing. But we would like to bring colleagues and introduce colleagues to this so important space, as it is the IGF. So, Soledad Arrenguez will be presenting first. She's an expert in the new technologies and education. She's a graduate and post graduate in a teacher in the different universities in Argentina, and she's an expert on technology and education. She is also coordinator of the education department and also is a researcher on misinformation on social media and the media literacy.
Today, she will be sharing with us the progress of her research under the Trust Editor. Soledad, please go ahead.
>> SOLEDAD ARRENGUEZ: Thank you so much for the introduction. It's a pleasure to be part of this LAC Space session and to speak about our work on the Trust Editor. Let me tell you what we are from the Desconfio Project. This is an organization that was brought in Argentina. We are committed to fighting against misinformation, and we want to have an ecosystem based on information we can trust.
We have different initiatives ongoing, such as media literacy and delivering of ideas, products, and solutions. One of the solutions we have been working on is a Trust Editor. What is this Trust Editor about? We know we are facing an issue, and this is a trust crisis that media are undergoing. And this is not just the case in Argentina; this is a worldwide issue, because there is a situation of news disconnection, and we also need to add fake news and misinformation.
Misinformation is not new, but it has new dimensions and new complexities based on the advancements that we see on media. So, based on the situation and the quick proliferation of these new pieces of misinformation, we see new challenges and challenges being posted by artificial intelligence. This is affecting journalism and communication media because there is no time to check or verify information.
So, having said all this, the question of how we can face misinformation from media led us to create our Trust Editor prototype. So, what is this development about? This is a prototype that uses artificial intelligence to be able to detect inconsistencies in news, in different posts, before they are being published. And the idea is to alert editors for them to be able to adjust the information before posting or publishing that piece of information. The goal is to be able to intervene timely; that is, to work in the preranking section, in order to avoid sharing misinformation or to generate information with fake news or false information.
The solution is focused on two key aspects. On the one hand, the idea is to reduce the possibilities of sharing fake news, taking artificial intelligence as one of the tools. And then I will add on that, and to increase trust on media and the news being posted, reducing biases and polarization.
This is a project that is part of the LEAP Project, and with the support of trusting news. This is an organization working on the creation of indicators to raise or increase trust in media. This prototype aims at working with a syllabus; that is to say, to work with publishers of media agencies and help editors in the news making process.
Let me give you some background information. We have the journalist. We have the edition unit. Journalists start producing or drafting their article. They add this information to the SCF. This is already working. We have the Trust Editor working. So, when the post is sent to editors, the system gets activated. So, you can read the article and you can get some indicators. This is what we call quality indicators. And when I say quality, I know that this concept might be quite complex.
And what do I mean by this? Why are we emphasizing this complexity? Well, we have been working with the publishers group, editors, and journalists, in order to understand what makes an article trustworthy. And let me give you an example.
The article needs to cite the sources or the voices of authorities, if, let's say if we have, for example, an article providing diversity in the sources they are citing. So, this has been created together with professionals to be able to create these indicators. The development is now in Spanish. We would like to escalate the project and start working in the preranking space. This is going to be integrated.
There is a visual, a user friendly visual interface, so in the text you can identify in colors the inconsistencies or paragraph or phrases that need to be improved, and these can be analysed based on a dashboard.
In a nutshell, let me also add with you in the chat the presentation for you to see the demonstration and how this dashboard would look like and work with one particular article as an example. But the Trust Editor identifies and we are working on the other indicators but this is training we need to carry out. And the Trust Editor is being trained to identify, for example, in this case, additives or entities, because what we want to see is how these inconsistencies are being released and translated into certain indicators.
So, we work with the sources, the expressions that are being used. For example, so this editor will analyse this Trust Editor that is the name, the reason of the name this Trust Editor will analyse the companies, already being mentioned people, the entities, the times of these names appear, because these may lead to certain bias, the additives that are being used, the amount of additives and words or attempts that are allowing us to distinguish between information and opinion.
This is an ongoing project. We want to help publishers. That's why Trust Editor will deliver red flags for the human eye, for journalists to be able to review the information. This is not automatised. I mean, this is not to, you know, eliminate journalists, but we want to strengthen the task of the journalist. We want to show the red flags. The Editor will be checking any indicator or any red flag. And this will give rise or room to improvement. Thank you so much for the time, and we expect to have further news in future sessions.
>> FERNANDA MARTINEZ: Thank you, this is great information. Please share the information in the chat so we can check it when it is published. Very important to highlight that the human eye is there. There is a human revision behind this tool.
Now I'm going to give the floor to Pilar Llorens, a doctor in social rights, expert on technology rights. She is a professor in Cordoba and CETyS researcher. She will talk about her research on support on judicial sectors in the responsible adoption of generative artificial intelligence. And she's going to speak about some cases of Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico. And Pilar is leading the research in Argentina. Pilar, please go ahead.
>> PILAR LLORENS: Thank you, everyone. And thanks those of you who are still in this session. All presentations have been really interesting. Today, I will very briefly summarize all the findings we have seen throughout the year in terms of the generative AI adoption, particularly in the judicial sector of Argentina, because that is my area of expertise.
But the framework of this project is led by CETyS, and the idea is to understand why the different judicial branches in Latin America are adopting artificial intelligence tools. Particularly, in the decision making processes. The question is, are these branches opened to these processes, or are they using these processes explicitly? What are the risks that are being associated to the use of these tools?
Judges, legal operators, are taking other elements into account. Is this tool being used only for adopting certain measures and not for final decisions?
So, the idea of this project, as Fernanda said before, is to get evidence for us to be able to provide as evidence to the legal ecosystem, in order to develop certain products, allowing us to use generative artificial intelligence, and this implementation needs to be done in a responsible manner taking into account human rights, respect for temperatures and other legal standards. The source of this project has to do with interviews and the document analysis. And data is to understand how legal operators in the judicial ecosystem embraces the use of generative artificial intelligence related tools in decision making.
Argentina has a federal system, and therefore, we have different jurisdictions with different realities in terms of resources and in terms of the different cases they manage. For example, only four jurisdictions manage 60% of the cases that take place in the country. This is quite important to take into account because it has a direct impact on the legal system at the time of implementing these tools.
The legal branches that have adopted these tools are not the ones with the highest amount of cases, but are the ones that have a low volume of cases. And this calls our attention, because this does not solve the issues that all jurisdictions have.
All jurisdictions have someone in common in the country, and this is the various low trust, or perception of low trust in the judicial sector. That is to say, the society does not trust in the judicial system because they believe that the justice is slow and the decisions are not fair. So, the judicial operators see this as a way of improving the delivery of justice. So, the emergence of generative AI tools created interest among operators, legal operators, because they were able to adopt resolutions or make decisions, or even draft resolutions in a short time, and this was translated into an improvement in the amount of cases they could address.
But in this context, there are no specific use cases in Argentina implementing generative AI. We can identify three large universes where this tool is being tested. One is those having the support of the superior courts. We have the Province of San Juan and Rio Negro. They have their own protocol for the use of AI tools. There is a second use that is the one supported by academic institutions and by some state based institutions. This is a programme being developed throughout the country. And the idea is to identify the use that the legal operators are doing with these tools that are not published results, so we cannot really assess the impact of the tool in this context.
And on the larger universe has to do with the individual uses that legal operators are making, let's say charges or other legal operators, in order to facilitate some task. In this case, we'd speak about (?) summaries, is the summary of cases, looking for some case law element. And there is one particular case where the charge is mentioning the use of AI in a specific resolution, but it has no public repercussions. So, it leads me to analyse the reactions.
There is no institutionalized reaction that is no start point from the Bar Associations. There is an expecting position, if you will, from the Legal Branch and from the representatives of the ecosystem, and they are expecting to see what these tools will cost.
However, there are some consensus that we see in the interviews, and this is that the use of and the introduction of AI is a fact under Judicial Branch has to embrace this and adapt to its use.
There are some consensus. Legal actors do understand that there are some tasks, for example, the summary of case law or the judgment of test can be done by artificial intelligence. However, this can be used by using other tools and not necessarily using AI. But they know that in the legal practice and in decision making, these tools should not be used, because there are certain responsibilities that need to be met by those making decisions, and these functional responsibilities have to do with data protection and the way those personal data are being protected and managed in legal processes.
Human control is another element that needs to be taken into account when working on resolutions and when using these tools. And there is consensus on the fact that the personnel needs to be trained, in order to use generative AI.
To wrap up, so far, we have seen that most of the respondents believe that there is a need to give up the tolerance that they have in terms of some processes and that they need to adopt generative AI, but lack of regulation may lead to some issues when you think of these tools.
The Thematic Stakeholder dialogue is also necessary when discussing the use of generative artificial intelligence and data management is another aspect to be taken into account.
>> FERNANDA MARTINEZ: Thank you very much. The idea is that this research is will be published in March on the website. This is Fernanda speaking. Before going to the wrap up, I'd like to thank all the researchers for their researches. And the large scope of themes that are under the umbrella of Internet governance.
If we thought about it ten years ago, the themes that we discussed at the time are still being discussed. Many of them are still being discussed, and there are many new topics. Today, academia discusses with the technical experts, and there is a dialogue across different sectors and across the different professionals with very different backgrounds, and this is very, very enriching.
Going back to the question regarding the second section in first part, it shows how invigorating and how vital these dialogues are among the different sectors, in practice, in the field. Then we will see what happens with those spaces, with those sectors. But I think that this is a way to see the very, very rich dialogue that takes place among the different sectors.
And something that we say at CETyS when we start an activity or a project that needs continuity, is that it is difficult to get it started, but once that space disappears, there is something about that debate that goes away as well. So, I am calling you to maintain and to keep up these dialogue spaces, because afterwards, it's very hard to have them back. Federica, you have the floor.
>> FEDERICO TORTORELLA: Thank you to all researchers and the regional organizations, to our remote participants. Thank you to our interpreters to help us with this very valuable task. With this, we close this edition of the LAC Space of IGF and see you in Norway very soon. Thank you very much. Have a wonderful rest of the day. Thank you.
>> Bye, everyone.
>> Thank you very much.
>> Thank you, Lito.
>> Thank you, Lito!
>> Bye, everyone.